Process Design
In-House or Outsourced Production
The company evaluates labor force or expertise availability during in-house or outsourcing resources for production. The method requires the company to examine if employees and management team have the right working and educational experience to help produce quality goods for the customers (Moons et al., 2019). Additionally, the firm examines resource costs when using in-house or outsourcing methods for production. The company assesses the affordability of using in-house, compared with outsourcing in production (Moons et al., 2019). Later, the firm chooses affordable in-house or outsourced resources while avoiding costly ones.
Service Process Design Matrix
The service process design matrix has four quadrants, including service factory and shop, as well as mass and professional services that are essential in examining the company’s production. The company uses the service factory quadrant of the design matrix to produce services of the same quality for all customers. The firm implements more technology than human resources when producing products and services to enhance total quality management (Nam et al., 2018). On the other hand, the firm incorporates the requirements of the service shop quadrant when customizing services and products to meet the continuously changing customer needs, making it rely on more technology and capital during production.
The firm integrates the requirements of the mass service quadrant when producing services that require less customization based on clients’ needs. The quadrant principles allow the company to produce services based on the increasing number of customers during peak periods of the market. For instance, the company uses the elements of mass service during Christmas, easter, and Thanksgiving when customers’ numbers frequently increase (Nam et al., 2018). The organization finally implements the requirements of the professional service quadrant when producing high-quality and customized services for specific market segments. The firm incorporates sophisticated technology and a highly skilled labor force when using the professional service element in production.
Design Process of a Product
A product-oriented organization would hope to create a product vision or vision statement when implementing the design process of a product. The process differs from service designing since it requires firms to implement product-oriented designs after acquiring and using the right technological, capital, physical, and human resources (Nam et al., 2018). Consequently, unlike service-process design, the product-profess design helps organizations produce the best products that match the changing market needs for better customer satisfaction.
Service Process Design
A service-oriented organization may expect to achieve high customer satisfaction when implementing service designs. Companies implement the professional service quadrant when producing services for middle- and high-income customers. For example, airline firms may prioritize hiring the best pilots, flight controllers, and flight attendants when producing services for high-end clients (Nam et al., 2018). Similarly, the organization may hire qualified cyber and physical security professionals to reduce security risks when providing services to exclusive and sophisticated customers.
Alignment Between Process Type and Product
Project
The project process is applicable in building transport and communication products or infrastructure. The method does not include mass production of products to meet the increasing market size or the number of customers. For example, engineers may implement this process technique when building a watch tower or roads for users. In this case, the process requires a highly skilled labor force such as architects, engineers, safety professionals, and project managers.
Job-Shop
The job-shop process is relevant when producing products such as printed uniforms. The process is highly flexible, allowing companies to serve diverse and numerous customers. It involves skilled employees to enhance customer satisfaction regarding the product. Based on the flexibility of the process and the ability to serve more customers, the procedure has more variable costs. The cost of production depends on customers’ needs, the number of products produced, and the expected quality of the commodities.
Batch
The batch manufacturing process is relevant in the baking sector. Bakeries may use this process to produce cakes, bread, buns, and cookies for customers with similar but slightly differentiated product tastes. Based on this, the process is slightly more flexible than the project and job-shop operations. In addition, batch production involves the production of reasonably high volumes of products that vary based on the market demand (Oshiro et al., 2021). The process is labor-intensive and requires skilled and semi-skilled employees to enhance product quality and quantity uniformity.
Repetitive
The microchip manufacturing industry uses the repetitive process method. The technique helps these manufacturers produce more volume and high-quality semiconductors for the market (Oregon State University, n.d.). The process entails a continuous and uniform flow of manufacturing activities to enhance consistency in the quality of microchips. The production process is also capital intensive, has high production costs, and involves highly skilled workers to enhance the quality of products.
Continuous Flow
The continuous flow applies to producing natural gas in the petroleum and energy sectors. The procedure includes producing uniform quality products to meet customers’ high expectations. The production also entails manufacturing goods in large volumes with limited variable costs (Liu et al., 2020). Further, the process is highly capital-intensive, explaining why oil production requires computerized equipment and technologies to promote consistency in production quality and quantity of products.
Layout Planning
Layout Types
Companies may implement the process layout to develop and manage warehousing spaces when producing and storing home appliances, equipment, and automotive products. The product layout allows companies to chronologically situate equipment based on their respective roles in producing and packaging soaps, body lotions, perfumes, soft drinks, coffees, and milk (Perera, 2018). Finally, the cellular layout requires companies to have production workflows with employees who perform different roles when producing newspapers, shoes, and other products in the apparel industry.
Effects of Organizational Needs on Designs and Operations
The firm’s need to enhance warehouse accessibility affects its warehousing operations. For instance, the company requires an L-shaped warehouse layout to support the easy flow of equipment and workers when arranging inventory and stocktaking. The firm also implements the U-shaped warehouse design because it allows the easy movement of forklifts, pallet jacks, hand trucks, and service carts. Thus, the firm needs warehouse layouts that facilitate faster movement of people, activities, and equipment flow when arranging, recording, and packaging products.
The company’s need to control production costs impacts its warehouse designs. For example, the company requires an affordable warehouse to construct because of the budget constraints of its production processes. These expenses include acquiring land, building materials, technology, and labor for a warehouse facility. In addition, the firm requires a warehouse with reasonable and manageable maintenance costs. These costs include servicing, upgrading, and renovating warehouse structures and equipment.
Finally, the throughput needs or requirements of the firm impact its warehouse designs. The throughput refers to the number of goods, equipment, or stock accessed or moved through the warehouse during manufacturing or inventory management. In this case, the firm requires an I-shaped warehouse design with high throughput to enhance the scalability of the manufacturing process. The warehouse layout makes it easier for the company to increase its quantity of production, as well as storage space for inventory, supplies, and stock.
Process Flow Charts
The process of product return in the company through reserve logistics starts with the phase of initiating and processing the return. The stage involves defining as well as mapping the stages, resources needed, and stakeholders that will execute the returning process. The next phase is establishing return categories that involve identifying if the return request belongs to recycling, reselling, or refurbishing categories. The third phase is waste identification and management, where the firm collects and disposes of wastes responsibly to enhance the eco-sustainability of the process (Association for Supply Chain Management (ASCM), 2022). The final stage in product return includes addressing customers’ complaints. It involves executing repair, resell, or refurbishing to address customers’ reasons for return.
Capacity Planning
Capacity Decisions
Companies consider demand levels during capacity planning. Firms match their effective capacity with the current and future demands of goods. The reflection helps control supply chain disruptions resulting from a sudden growth in demand for goods (Ivanov et al., 2017). Generally, the consideration supports organizations in determining the maximum and minimum amounts of work their resources can support during a production period.
Organizations also consider production costs during capacity planning. Managers customize capacity planning and management based on current and projected labor, storage, warehousing, technology, contracting, subcontracting, inventory management, and inventory holding costs (Cheraghalikhani et al., 2019). Firms ensure that their effective capacities match their goals of minimizing the cost of production and maximizing revenues.
The relationship between capacity, capacity utilization, and process design is that they all influence the production capabilities of a firm. The three concepts are also related since they directly affect the effective capacity of a company. In this case, poor capacity, process design, and capacity utilization lead to negative production results, leading to quality problems, material handling issues, and production delays.
References
Association for Supply Chain Management (ASCM). (2022). What is reverse logistics? Web.
Cheraghalikhani, A., Khoshalhan, F., & Mokhtari, H. (2019). Aggregate production planning: A literature review and future research directions. International Journal of Industrial Engineering Computations, 10(2), 309-330. Web.
Ivanov, D., Dolgui, A., Sokolov, B., & Ivanova, M. (2017). Literature review on disruption recovery in the supply chain. International Journal of Production Research, 55(20), 6158-6174. Web.
Liu, Y., Chen, G., & Yue, J. (2020). Manipulation of gas-liquid-liquid systems in continuous flow microreactors for efficient reaction processes. Journal of Flow Chemistry, 10(1), 103-121. Web.
Moons, K., Waeyenbergh, G., & Pintelon, L. (2019). Measuring the logistics performance of internal hospital supply chains–a literature study. Omega, 82, 205-217. Web.
Nam, S., Ha, C., & Lee, H. C. (2018). Redesigning in-flight service with service blueprint based on text analysis. Sustainability, 10(12), 4492. Web.
Oregon State University. (n.d.). Transistors at work. Microchip manufacturing. Web.
Oshiro, M., Zendo, T., & Nakayama, J. (2021). Diversity and dynamics of sourdough lactic acid bacteriota created by a slow food fermentation system. Journal of bioscience and bioengineering, 131(4), 333-340. Web.
Perera, K. G. U. (2018). Development of a customizable production line layout planning system for sri lankan fast fashion apparel industry. Web.